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11/20/08
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October
02, 2006 September 27 marks the anniversary of the publication of the first of the Antifederalist Papers in 1789. The Antifederalists were opponents of ratifying the US Constitution. They feared that it would create an overbearing central government, while the Constitution's proponents promised that this would not happen. As the losers in that debate, they are largely overlooked today. But that does not mean they were wrong or that we are not indebted to them. In many ways, the group has been misnamed. Federalism refers to the system of decentralized government. This group defended states rights — the very essence of federalism — against the Federalists, who would have been more accurately described as Nationalists. Nonetheless, what the so-called Antifederalists predicted would be the results of the Constitution turned out to be true in most every respect. The Antifederalists warned us that the cost Americans would bear in both liberty and resources for the government that would evolve under the Constitution would rise sharply. That is why their objections led to the Bill of Rights, to limit that tendency (though with far too little success that has survived to the present). (Read the rest here. Click the "back button" to return to The Price of Liberty.)
Other articles at the von Mises Institute (There are thousands of them, all free.) Defense
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Trouble with NASA
Ludwig
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Free Market, published by the Mises Institute The
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for Humane Studies National
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Archives The
Ethics of Liberty The
Idea of a Private Law Society The
Source of Prices Enterprising
Education: Doing Away with the Public School System Why
is Medical Care so Expensive? The
Snare of Government Subsidies How
We Come to Own Ourselves Is
All-Day Kindergarten An Economic Fix? The
Justice and Prudence of War: Toward A Libertarian Analysis Click
the "back button" to return to The Price of Liberty.)
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